Im interested in an FD in which the owner claims that there is a vacume issue preventing the second turbo from spooling up.

From what I've gathered via searching the boost controll solenoid is prone to failure, along with rotting vacume hoses. Beyond this, is there anything else I should look into? I understand that it could possibly be that the turbo is bad.

The current owner "says" the turbos were changed only 10k miles ago, yet can't produce a single receipt for the job. It just leads me to believe that they weren't changed at all, and he's trying to mask a bigger issue.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

Have a look at the turbos - if they're not too rusty they're probably pretty new. I wouldn't worry too much about that.

There are numerous possibilities why the car isn't producing boost above 4500rpm. There are valves on the exhaust side and intake side that will cause low/no boost, and solenoids, check valves, etc controlling them.

It's usually not an expensive thing to fix, but it is time consuming and requires attention to detail. If I were buying it I'd start with the vacuum hose job and test every solenoid and actuator, then replace any hoses that looked crusty. But most people want to find that one problem and fix it quickly, and they don't like to spend hours squinting at the vacuum hose diagram to solve it. So it's up to you.

You can find turbo troubleshooting info in the 3rd gen faq. Linked at the top of this forum.

Dave